Making the reconnection with customers

Roanna Williams explains how utilities can reconnect with their customers by matching the level of customer experience they have come to expect from other sectors.

Companies everywhere are facing growing pressures to put customer experience at the heart of their businesses. In an era of increased competition, the empowered consumer can – and will – demand more from the brands they engage with.

This is no different for the utilities sector. With an increasing number of savvy consumers switching energy suppliers, it’s clear that companies looking to retain loyal customers need to examine when and why consumers go elsewhere.

Stepping up

Today’s energy industry is a commitment-free area. Growing competition and constant pressure from aggregators – where typically consumers change suppliers using price comparisons – mean it is vital that companies up their game to remain competitive. Price is no longer enough: customer experience and personal incentives are key.

We’re starting to see a real change from utilities providers looking to catch up with other sectors in terms of customer experience. Encouragingly, customer satisfaction in the industry as a whole is improving faster than any other sector in the UK. But at the same time, Google Trends data reveals interest in switching hit a four year high earlier this year.

This suggests that the battle in the sector for customer loyalty is far from won, and there is a huge opportunity for providers who can get customer experience right. The smaller firms looking to penetrate the market must focus on doing things differently, while the ‘big 6’ must change strategy to retain their customers. Companies now need to focus on what the barriers are to delivering a better experience, and how can they can overcome them.

Different sectors, different experiences?

Today’s customers have high expectations, partly driven by the exceptional service offered in sectors such as retail and entertainment. But the nature of these industries means customer service is quite often simply easier to provide based on the positive contact points within the customer lifecycle.

In the retail sector, consumers will choose the shops that provide the experience they value. Think, for example, of the consumers who would rather pay a premium on their clothes if it means experiencing a more pleasant shopping experience – and they are less inclined to complain about sub-par service.

However, in utilities, the customer is less likely to value the experience as highly. Consumers won’t generally call to thank utilities suppliers for the fantastic electricity they have enjoyed in their home, so companies need to think outside of the box when it comes to contact points and look at how they can develop a positive relationship with their customers.

Utility suppliers will also encounter customers in more complex situations. Providing a fundamental life altering service means there is a wider window for mistakes or reasons for dissatisfaction than in the retail sector. Being without electricity or water is considerably more inconvenient than being sent an item in the wrong size.

In these circumstances, the customer needs to feel supported by well designed, tailored processes that take into account their different journeys and needs. Indeed, it is these journeys where the battle for customer satisfaction and loyalty will be won or lost.

Getting it right

While customer experience may be harder to deliver in the utilities sector, it means there’s also more scope to get it right. Providers now need to go beyond expectations to deliver a fully integrated, personal omni-channel experience.

This comes down to three simple steps: get to know your customers, critically analyse your processes, and introduce true transformation to re-energise the business. While it sounds simple, many companies still struggle to get it right.

Get to know your customers

First things first: companies need to gain a greater understanding of their customers and behaviours across every stage of the customer lifecycle. By leaning on their analytics functions, companies can segment their customers not by age and stereotypical standard forms, but by behaviour.

This will help to develop an understanding of how your consumers like to interact with you, and how this may change according to the time of day, their location, or how they are feeling at that exact point in time.

This will be an ever-changing scale, so suppliers need to build flexibility and choice into the provision of their contact channels – particularly when considering different points in the customer lifecycle. It’s also important to remember that behaviours will also change depend on market trends: tariff variations, SMART metering, and connected home apps will all change how customers interact with your business.

At its core, customer service depends on being able to promptly address a problem with an expert, without having to spend 20 minutes going through an automated process on the phone, or waiting hours for a reply on web chat. Providers should also look to alternative contact channels, such as messenger within apps and interactive SMS, to give customers the most efficient and convenient service possible.

Analyse your processes

Customers now have more channels available to get in touch with brands than ever before, but this comes with its teething problems. The rise of omnichannel also means the rise of channel bounce, where a customer is shunted from agent to agent and channel to channel until their problem is resolved. To an already frustrated customer, having to repeat themselves again and again will add fuel to the fire, and could risk damaging their relationship with the company.

That’s why it’s critical suppliers take the time to analyse internal and external processes impacting the customer experience, and understand each and every point of potential failure – whether it be legacy systems, uninformed agents or a broken website link – and work through solutions to resolve broken processes to allow for a smooth front end customer experience.

Re-energise the business

By analysing and simplifying practises, businesses can focus on the true value of the business: their people.

Key to great customer service is a flexible and dedicated team, open to innovation whilst mindful of the difficulties a customer may face. Ensuring your team remains informed and empowered is critical. Making the most of empathic training, engagement strategies and full circle feedback channels will help teams become passionate about providing valuable experiences, every time they pick up the phone or start typing.

Indeed, in today’s customer-centric world, it’s time we moved on from talking about the challenges of providing a good customer experience, and started focusing on finding the right solutions to reconnect utility companies with their customers.